3rd Degree (22 page)

Mal seemed calm. He went over to the window, peeked through the curtains. Then he headed into the other room and came back wheeling a black case. “Probably die,” he answered.

Michelle's heart seemed to be beating a thousand beats per second. Any moment, armed, uniformed men could burst in. Part of her was gripped with fear, part was ashamed. She knew she had let down her friends. Ended everything they had fought for. But she had helped murder women and chil-dren, and now maybe she could stop the killing.

Suddenly the phone rang. For a second everyone turned, eyes fixed on the phone. The rings were like alarm bells going off.

“Pick it up,” Robert said to Mal. “You want to be the leader. Pick it up.”

Mal walked over. Four, five rings. Finally he lifted the phone.

He listened for a second. His face didn't register fear or surprise. He even told them his name. “Stephen Hardaway,” he said proudly.

Then he listened for a long time. “I hear you,” he answered. He put down the receiver, swallowed, and looked around. “They say we have this one chance. Anyone who wants to leave, you'd better go now.”

The room was deathly quiet. Robert at the window. Julia, her back pressed up against the wall. Mal, finally seeming shocked and out of answers. Michelle wanted to cry that she had brought this upon them.

“Well, they ain't putting their hands on me,” Robert said. He picked up his automatic rifle, his back to the kitchen door, eyeing the van parked in the driveway.

He winked, a sort of silent farewell. Then he yanked open the door and ran out of the house.

About four feet from the van he raised the gun, squeezing off a long burst in the direction of the police. There were two loud cracks. Just two. Robert stopped in his tracks. He spun around, a surprised look on his face, crimson stains widen-ing on his chest.

“Robert!” Julia screamed. She smashed the barrel of her gun through the front window and started shooting wildly. Then she was hurled backward and didn't move again.

Suddenly a black canister sailed through the front win-dow. Gas started to leak out. Then another black canister. A stinging, bitter cloud began to envelop the room, clawing at Michelle's lungs.

“Oh, Mal,” she cried. She looked toward him. He was standing there, no fear on his face now.

In his hands he held a portable phone.

“I'm not going out there,” he said.

“I'm not, either.” She shook her head.

“You really are a brave little girl.” Mal smiled.

She watched him punch in a four-digit number. A second later she heard a ring. It came from the suitcase.

Then a second ring.

A third...

“Remember” - Mal took a breath - “no juice, no boost. Right, Michelle?”

WHEN THE HOUSE BLEW we were crouched behind the cover of a black-and-white, barely a hundred feet away.

There were bold orange flashes as the windows exploded. Then the house seemed to lift off its foundation, a fiery cloud ripping the whole thing apart through the roof.

“Get down!” Molinari yelled. “Everybody down!”

The blast hurled us backward. I took Cindy, who'd been standing next to me, down to the ground, shielding her from the force of the blast and the shower of debris.

We lay there as the searing gust lifted over us. A few cries of “Holy shit” and “Are you all right?”

Slowly, we got back up. “Oh, God... ,” Cindy groaned.

Where a second ago a white clapboard house had been standing, now there was only smoke, fire, and a crater of blown-out walls.

“Michelle,” Cindy muttered. “Come on, Michelle.”

We watched the fire rise as the wind whipped the flames. No one came out. No one could have lived through such a blast.

Sirens started up. Frantic radio transmissions filled the air. I heard cops shouting into walkie-talkies: “We have a major explosion at seven twenty-two Seventh Street....”

“Maybe she wasn't in there.” Cindy shook her head, still staring at the devastated house.

I put my arm around her. “They killed Jill, Cindy.”

Later, after the fire crews had doused the blaze to smoking cinders and the EMS teams were going around tagging the charred remains, I sifted through the debris myself.

Was it over now? Was the threat gone? How many were in there? I didn't know. It looked like four or five. Hardaway was probably dead. Was Charles Danko in there, too? August Spies?

Claire had arrived. She was kneeling over the covered bodies, but the parts were burned almost beyond recognition.

“I'm looking for a white male,” I told her, “about fifty.”

“Best I can tell, there seem to be four of them,” she said. “The black male who was shot in the driveway. Three others inside. Two of them female, Lindsay.”

Joe Molinari came over to me. He'd been giving Washing-ton an update on what had just happened. “You okay?” he asked.

“It's not over,” I said, nodding at the tagged mounds.

“Danko?” He shrugged. “The medical people will have to tell us that. In any case, his network is gone, his cell. The device, too. What can he do now?”

Amid the wreckage, I spotted something - a barrette. There was something almost funny about it. I reached down and picked it up.

“Voice of the people be heard,” I said to Molinari, holding out the barrette.

There was a peace symbol on it.

CHARLES DANKO was wandering the streets of San Fran-cisco aimlessly and thinking about what had just happened in Berkeley, where his friends had died for the cause, died as martyrs just like William had a long time ago.

I could kill a lot of people right now. Right here.

He knew he could go on a rampage and they wouldn't catch him for several hours, maybe longer if he got his head screwed on straight, if he thought this through - if he was a careful killer.

You're dead, slick young business creep in your expensive-looking black-on-black ensemble.

You're dead, too, blond fashionista.

You. And you. You! You! You four frolicking asshole buddies!

God, it would be so easy to let his rage out now.

The police, the FBI, they were pathetic at their job of “protecting” the people.

They had everything wrong, didn't they?

They didn't understand that this could be about justice and revenge. The two concepts were perfectly compatible; they could go hand in hand. He was following in his brother William's footsteps, honoring his fallen brother's inspired dream, and at the same time he was avenging William. Two causes were better than one. Twice the motivation; twice the anger.

The faces he was passing, the expensive clothes, the absurd shops, were all starting to blur before his eyes - all of them were guilty. The whole country was.

They didn't get it, though. Not yet.

The war was right here in their streets of gold - the war was here to stay.

No one could stop it anymore.

There would always be more soldiers.

After all, that's what he was, just a soldier.

He stopped at a pay phone and made two calls.

The first, to another soldier.

The second, to his mentor, the person who had thought of everything, including how to use him.

Charles Danko had made his decision: tomorrow was a go for terror.

Nothing had changed.

THE NEXT DAY, the G-8 meetings were scheduled to begin as originally planned. The hard-liners, the tough guys in Washington, wanted it that way. So be it.

The proceedings were set for that night, with a reception in the Rodin Gallery at the Palace of the Legion of Honor overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

It would be hosted by Eldridge Neal, one of the most admired African Americans in the country, the current vice president. Every available uniform was assigned to security detail at the venues and along the routes. Every ID would be triple-checked, every trash can and air vent sniffed by explosive-detecting dogs.

But Danko was still out there.

And Carl Danko was still the only link to his son I had.

I drove back to Sacramento while the rest of the depart-ment prepared for the G-8 festivities. Carl Danko seemed surprised to see me again. “Thought you'd be accepting some kind of Medal of Honor today. The killing of young kids seems to be a habit with you people. So, why are you here?”

“Your son,” I told him.

“My son is dead.”

But Danko sighed and let me in. I followed him back to

his den. A fire was burning there. He knelt down and stoked the flames, then sat down in an easy chair. "Like I told you before, the time to talk about William was

thirty years ago.“ ”Not Billy,“ I said. ”Charles.“ Danko seemed to hesitate. ”I told the federal boys -“ ”We know,“ I interrupted him mid-sentence. ”We know

his record, Mr. Danko. We know he isn't dead."

The old man snarled, “You people won't stop, will you? First William, now Charlie. Go take your medals, Lieutenant. You caught your killers. What makes you think you can come in here and tell me Charlie is alive?”

“George Bengosian,” I answered.

“Who?”

"George Bengosian. The second victim. He knew Billy

back at Berkeley. More than knew him, Mr. Danko. He was the one who turned your son in.“ Danko shifted in his easy chair. ”What's that supposed to mean?"

“And Frank Seymour? He was killed in the Rincon Center blast the other day. Seymour was the lead agent on the Hope Street raid that killed your son. Charles is out there. He's killing innocent people, Mr. Danko. I think he's gone mad. I think you do, too.”

The old man took a deep breath. He stared into the fire, then got up and went over to a desk. He took out a pack of letters from a bottom drawer. Tossed them in front of me on the coffee table.

“I didn't lie. My son has been dead to me. I've seen him once, five minutes on a Seattle street corner, in the past thirty years. Few years ago, these began to arrive. Once a year, around my birthday.”

Jesus, I'd been right all along. Charles Danko was alive....

I took the letters and began to sort through them.

The old man shrugged. “Guess he's teaching college or something.”

I inspected the envelopes; no return addresses. But the last four had originated up north. Portland, Oregon. One, as recently as January 7, four months ago.

Portland.

A thought flashed through my head. It couldn't be a coin-cidence. Stephen Hardaway had gone to college in Portland. Reed. I looked back at the old man. “You say he's teaching? Teaching where?”

He shook his head. “Don't know.”

But I knew. Suddenly I knew with a clarity that was inescapable.

Danko was at Reed, wasn't he? All this time, he was up there teaching college.

That was how he and Stephen Hardaway met.

I WAS PATCHED THROUGH to Molinari at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. The vice president's reception was less than two hours away. The G-8 had begun.

“I think I know where Danko is,” I barked into the hand-held phone. “He's at Reed College. In Portland. He's a teacher there. Joe, Reed is where Stephen Hardaway went to school. It fits.”

Molinari told me he would send an FBI team out to the college while I headed back to the city. I had the lights flashing and the siren on the whole way. South of Vallejo, I couldn't wait any longer. I got the general number for Reed.

I identified myself to an operator and was patched through to the dean of academic studies, a Michael Picotte. FBI agents from the Portland office were arriving as he got on the line.

“We desperately need to locate one of your professors. This is an emergency,” I told the dean. “I don't have a name or description. His real name is Charles Danko. He'd be approximately fifty years old.”

“D-Danko?” Picotte stammered. “There's no one by the name of Danko connected with the college. We have several professors in their fifties, including myself.”

I was growing more exasperated and impatient. “Do you have a fax?” I asked. “A fax number I can have?”

I radioed in to the office and got Lorraine on the line. I told her to locate the FBI wanted poster of Charles Danko from the seventies. The resemblance might still be there. Dean Picotte put me on hold as the fax came through.

I was approaching the Bay Bridge; San Francisco Interna-tional was only about twenty minutes away. I could fly up to Portland myself, I was thinking. Maybe I should get on a plane and go to Reed right now.

“All right, I have it,” the dean said, coming back on the line. “This is a wanted poster....”

“Look at it closely,” I said. “Please... Do you recognize the face?”

“My God... ,” the dean seemed to choke.

“Who is he? I need a name!” I yelled into the phone. I sensed that Picotte was hesitating. He might be giving up a colleague, even a friend.

I pulled off the bridge into San Francisco and onto Harri-son Street. “Dean Picotte, please...I need a name! Lives are at stake here.”

“Stanzer,” the dean finally said. “It looks like Jeffrey Stanzer. I'm almost certain.”

I pulled out a pen and hastily scribbled the name down. Jeffrey Stanzer. Stanzer was Danko!

Danko was August Spies. And he was still on the loose.

“Where do we find him?” I said. “There are FBI agents at the college now. We need an address for Stanzer right now.”

Picotte hesitated again. “Professor Stanzer's a respected member of our faculty.”

I pulled to a halt on the side of the street. “You have to give us a specific location where we can find Jeffrey Stanzer. This is a homicide investigation! Stanzer is a murderer. He's going to kill again.”

The dean exhaled. “You said you were calling from San Francisco?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause. “He's down there with you.... Jeffrey Stanzer is presenting at the G-8 meeting. I think it's sched-uled for tonight.”

My God, Danko was going to kill everybody there.